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Helen Bonaparte
Middle-aged, middling academic Helen Bonaparte has left her husband and children at home for a week-long Italian group tour with strangers. Happy with her home life, but needing self-renewal, she intends to sulk in the corners of buses and museums for a week, indulging in great art but scowling the rest of the world away.
Until, that is, she meets Marieke, the tour guide, who becomes the object of erotic fantasies Helen didn't even know she had.
As each day passes, Helen's home life recedes, only to be replaced with increasingly bizarre, invasive, and always secretive ways to get closer to Marieke. As she meanders around tourist gems of Renaissance Italy, Helen must come to terms with her new obsession, existing just on the border of dream and disillusionment, the imaginative and the mundane, the sacred and the profane.
Until, that is, she meets Marieke, the tour guide, who becomes the object of erotic fantasies Helen didn't even know she had.
As each day passes, Helen's home life recedes, only to be replaced with increasingly bizarre, invasive, and always secretive ways to get closer to Marieke. As she meanders around tourist gems of Renaissance Italy, Helen must come to terms with her new obsession, existing just on the border of dream and disillusionment, the imaginative and the mundane, the sacred and the profane.
258 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2022
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About the author
Sarah D'Stair
12 books7 followersSarah D’Stair is the author of three novels, including Helen Bonaparte, finalist for the BookLife 2024 Award, Abstract, and Central Valley, and the poetry chapbook One Year of Desire. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in Burningword, Waxing & Waning, Inwood Indiana and other publications, and her poetry reviews and interviews have appeared in West Branch, The Adroit Journal, The Rupture, and elsewhere. She also publishes academic articles in the field of critical animal studies.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 14, 2024
Thank you, NetGalley, for giving me an ARC for this book.
This is an interesting book to review. It feels very much like poetry, bound intro prose because it's all about the main character, Helen, feeling things while on a historical one-week tour of Europe. She has an artist's sensibilities, is a bit of a misanthrope, and is immediately obsessed with the tour guide, Marieke. Helen's internal monologue and plans while her obsession escalates is one that will be familiar to anyone with a crush and the highs and lows of emotion that accompany any attention or lack thereof are relatable and organic.
The book is sliced up into the seven days of the tour, each with a destination and European cultural place of interest that Helen can muse about. As her behaviour escalates, there are clever parallels to a book she had intended to read but all but abandoned during this holiday by Patricia Highsmith, and it is all very much like the kind of obsession Highsmith's characters display in similarly European classic settings.
For such a short book (under 150 pages for the digital version), this book is as tightly wound with tension as any suspense book, primarily because we don't quite know what Helen's ultimate intentions with this escalated obsession are or where she will finally draw the line, all while happily confessing to her "crush" to her husband at home with her children.
I enjoyed reading this book but I don't think I liked any of the characters (which is not a problem for me). Helen is single-minded and is angrily resentful of any intrusions or obstacles created by the other tourists between her and Marieke bonding. She's often curt, cruel, or just quietly seething at everyone else in the party and looks down on most of them for the duration of the tour, which does not endear her to anyone, I would think. Furthermore, a device frequently used in this book is Helen's internal monologue skipping between first and third person, which takes some getting used to but is used to good effect in the latter half of the book as Helen is solidifying this image of Helen Bonaparte.
I haven't read any Sarah D'Stair before so this was an enjoyable, if sometimes overwrought, first foray into her work. If you enjoy books about art and quiet, seething erotic obsessions, this may be an enjoyable one to read.
This is an interesting book to review. It feels very much like poetry, bound intro prose because it's all about the main character, Helen, feeling things while on a historical one-week tour of Europe. She has an artist's sensibilities, is a bit of a misanthrope, and is immediately obsessed with the tour guide, Marieke. Helen's internal monologue and plans while her obsession escalates is one that will be familiar to anyone with a crush and the highs and lows of emotion that accompany any attention or lack thereof are relatable and organic.
The book is sliced up into the seven days of the tour, each with a destination and European cultural place of interest that Helen can muse about. As her behaviour escalates, there are clever parallels to a book she had intended to read but all but abandoned during this holiday by Patricia Highsmith, and it is all very much like the kind of obsession Highsmith's characters display in similarly European classic settings.
For such a short book (under 150 pages for the digital version), this book is as tightly wound with tension as any suspense book, primarily because we don't quite know what Helen's ultimate intentions with this escalated obsession are or where she will finally draw the line, all while happily confessing to her "crush" to her husband at home with her children.
I enjoyed reading this book but I don't think I liked any of the characters (which is not a problem for me). Helen is single-minded and is angrily resentful of any intrusions or obstacles created by the other tourists between her and Marieke bonding. She's often curt, cruel, or just quietly seething at everyone else in the party and looks down on most of them for the duration of the tour, which does not endear her to anyone, I would think. Furthermore, a device frequently used in this book is Helen's internal monologue skipping between first and third person, which takes some getting used to but is used to good effect in the latter half of the book as Helen is solidifying this image of Helen Bonaparte.
I haven't read any Sarah D'Stair before so this was an enjoyable, if sometimes overwrought, first foray into her work. If you enjoy books about art and quiet, seething erotic obsessions, this may be an enjoyable one to read.
February 19, 2024
Helen and Marieke. Helen is a middle-aged American academic on a week-long group tour in Italy, away from husband and children. Marieke is the beautiful young Dutch tour guide. Helen is immediately enchanted and attracted by the most minute observations:
"Her hands are now only inches away from the bread that will soon be in my mouth. A film of oil from her lipstick lingers on the wine glass. Her hair might brush over my arm if I time it just right."
Her feelings turn rapidly into obsession: "the kind hidden in bedclothes and between the pages of books, buried in fingernail clippings you trim just in case."
This becomes the leading theme of the novel:
"Marieke, the student of art who claims she is no artist. She will become the story I decide her to be."
We get to know all this from an uninterrupted stream of consciousness in Helen's head. The prose is dense, almost poetic. A slow read, but it works for me in a very rewarding way.
Helen in her head is not a pleasant person. Her reading for the trip is a crime novel by Patricia Highsmith. And like Highsmith and Highsmithonian characters, she is sometimes creepy, morally ambiguous, perverse, misanthropic. Even cruel. She hates everything and everybody that comes between her and her Marieke fantasy. As a chatty tourist crosses her ways, she fantasizes that "this Texan should be wrenched down a well, every word pulled from her bloodied throat."
Helen's obsession with the unsuspecting younger woman starts to leak into the real world. A scarf is expropriated, a fork is sucked at by the wrong mouth, a hotel room is sneaked into. The dark world in Helen's head is contrasted by Marieke's beauty and the lightness and joy she radiates. Slowly, slowly the tension rises.
This book is not easy to categorize. It somehow sticks out and keeps apart from my usual reading. I found it very captivating and entertaining. There is not much else to be found of Ms. D'Stair's previous publications. A few poetry collections, some novels and novellas, mostly out of print. Even the novel published before "Helen Bonaparte", "Central Valley" (2017), is not available in any form for purchase. There is a teasing excerpt from this book, "Canal Days", in an on-line magazine, but that is all.
I fear "Helen Bonaparte" has been gravely underappreciated by the reading world. Not by me--a clear five of five stars! I hope that more works of Sarah D'Stair come out or will be made available again.
(based on a free review copy from NetGalley and the publisher)
"Her hands are now only inches away from the bread that will soon be in my mouth. A film of oil from her lipstick lingers on the wine glass. Her hair might brush over my arm if I time it just right."
Her feelings turn rapidly into obsession: "the kind hidden in bedclothes and between the pages of books, buried in fingernail clippings you trim just in case."
This becomes the leading theme of the novel:
"Marieke, the student of art who claims she is no artist. She will become the story I decide her to be."
We get to know all this from an uninterrupted stream of consciousness in Helen's head. The prose is dense, almost poetic. A slow read, but it works for me in a very rewarding way.
Helen in her head is not a pleasant person. Her reading for the trip is a crime novel by Patricia Highsmith. And like Highsmith and Highsmithonian characters, she is sometimes creepy, morally ambiguous, perverse, misanthropic. Even cruel. She hates everything and everybody that comes between her and her Marieke fantasy. As a chatty tourist crosses her ways, she fantasizes that "this Texan should be wrenched down a well, every word pulled from her bloodied throat."
Helen's obsession with the unsuspecting younger woman starts to leak into the real world. A scarf is expropriated, a fork is sucked at by the wrong mouth, a hotel room is sneaked into. The dark world in Helen's head is contrasted by Marieke's beauty and the lightness and joy she radiates. Slowly, slowly the tension rises.
This book is not easy to categorize. It somehow sticks out and keeps apart from my usual reading. I found it very captivating and entertaining. There is not much else to be found of Ms. D'Stair's previous publications. A few poetry collections, some novels and novellas, mostly out of print. Even the novel published before "Helen Bonaparte", "Central Valley" (2017), is not available in any form for purchase. There is a teasing excerpt from this book, "Canal Days", in an on-line magazine, but that is all.
I fear "Helen Bonaparte" has been gravely underappreciated by the reading world. Not by me--a clear five of five stars! I hope that more works of Sarah D'Stair come out or will be made available again.
(based on a free review copy from NetGalley and the publisher)
March 12, 2024
NOTE: These are reviews from Publications/Review Sites re-posted by the novel's publisher LATE MARRIAGE PRESS (this section will be updated as additional reviews become available)
(*) KIRKUS REVIEWS (3/12/2024)
A lurid exploration of passion, agency, and the role of art in self-actualization.
In D’Stair’s novel, a listless mother finds an object of obsession while on a guided tour of Italy.
Middle-aged Helen Bonaparte is quietly starving, but she can’t articulate what will sate her. She arrives in Venice while on a weeklong guided tour of Italy’s great cities and artistic history under no romantic illusions about where she is or who she’s with—she finds Venice “grey” and “unfortunate,” while her fellow Americans “inspire loathing.” Providing welcome distraction amid her vapid company and the ostentatious design of the city is Marieke, the tour guide, who’s young and beautiful and Dutch. Helen’s fascination is immediate: “My body is pierced with Marieke.” From the first dinner they share in Venice, Helen’s hyper-fixation intensifies, and her engagement with her fellow travelers and the cities they traverse (not to mention her relationship with her partner, Marcel, and their two children) begins to pale in the face of this new erotic fixation. She has enough self-awareness to shield her darker compulsions—Helen is careful not to look at or speak with Marieke for too long, and she befriends a fellow tour mate, Richard, to obscure her singular focus and desire. But as the group visits more cities, monuments, and museums (nearly every chapter denotes a new city and day), she becomes emboldened (inching toward frantic) as she reads into every touch and gloats over the symbolism in gestures as simple as sipping from a coffee cup. Is this erotic spell mutual, or is Helen losing herself to fantasy?
Before Helen departed for Italy, Marcel had recommended she take the novel Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith (author of queer, psychological novels such as The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Price of Salt) for company. Marcel’s reasoning is that the novel’s story takes place in the same towns; this can be read as a meta “wink” at D’Stair drawing inspiration from Highsmith’s interrogations of identity and existential crises amid picturesque backdrops. The novel Helen brings along involves a murder, and readers will find echoes of Ripley’s title character’s obsession with a beautiful young man and the escapist potential of his lifestyle in how Helen pines for Marieke and in the story’s mounting potential for violence. Helen notes again and again how little she cares for any of her tour mates, not even bothering to learn their names (aside from Richard’s). Her deepest conversations and moments of introspection that aren’t filtered through the lens of Marieke come from experiencing the art around her. The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, for example, offers a reprieve from her general cynicism, allowing her to ruminate and perhaps even believe in the power of art’s influence, if only briefly: “What does it matter whether it is truly real or some burgeoning capitalist’s abomination. Only the romance matters now, the symbol, the truth not in the material but in the mind of the observer.” And this elusive romance, for better or worse, eventually drives Helen toward her conclusion.
(*) PUBLISHERS WEEKLY/BOOKLIFE (2/27/2024)
An academic’s obsession plunges her Italian tour into charged erotic suspense.
Blending literary suspense, travelogue, and a spirit of uneasy eroticism, D'Stair (author of One Year of Desire) plumbs the heart and needs of a bored academic, Helen Bonaparte, on a restless tour of Italy she's undertaken to get out of her rut at home. But Helen can't stand the giggling girls and impassioned teachers on the tour and is fully prepared to mope her way through until she meets the tour guide, Marieke. Helen immediately forms an obsessive, strange, and poetic attachment to the beautiful young woman, an attachment whose unsettling qualities are echoed in the novel’s references to suspense master Patricia Highsmith, as Helen imagines an Italy “infused with Highsmith's pulse” and the rich details of the author’s world: “a hand resting on a hotel door, a pulled trigger,” and more.
The evocatively named Helen is still mostly sullen on the trip, except with a vivacious man named Richard, who becomes her travel buddy. Wrapped up in her own narrative, Helen continues to fixate on the details of Marieke's beauty, even as she's reminded of her partner, Marcel, and children at home. As she plunges deeper into fantasy, the narrative alternates between first- and third-person, suggesting a protagonist getting swept away. Soon, after a charged scene before Michelango's David, Helen surreptitiously takes a bite of food with Marieke's fork, just to have a "chance to feel her tongue." Things get increasingly weird as Helen takes advantage of being in Marieke's room to put her toothbrush in her mouth as well as leave her scent—a scene that jolts.
Helen Bonaparte brings poetic vigor to Helen’s imaginings and occasional pushing of boundaries, deftly mingling desire, tension, and the feeling that things could go very wrong. This is a full-bodied, sumptuously written, always perceptive study of yearning for something more, as Helen works through a moment of existential crisis, eager for connection. D'Stair’s prose startles, dazzles, informs, and pleases.
(*) KIRKUS REVIEWS (3/12/2024)
A lurid exploration of passion, agency, and the role of art in self-actualization.
In D’Stair’s novel, a listless mother finds an object of obsession while on a guided tour of Italy.
Middle-aged Helen Bonaparte is quietly starving, but she can’t articulate what will sate her. She arrives in Venice while on a weeklong guided tour of Italy’s great cities and artistic history under no romantic illusions about where she is or who she’s with—she finds Venice “grey” and “unfortunate,” while her fellow Americans “inspire loathing.” Providing welcome distraction amid her vapid company and the ostentatious design of the city is Marieke, the tour guide, who’s young and beautiful and Dutch. Helen’s fascination is immediate: “My body is pierced with Marieke.” From the first dinner they share in Venice, Helen’s hyper-fixation intensifies, and her engagement with her fellow travelers and the cities they traverse (not to mention her relationship with her partner, Marcel, and their two children) begins to pale in the face of this new erotic fixation. She has enough self-awareness to shield her darker compulsions—Helen is careful not to look at or speak with Marieke for too long, and she befriends a fellow tour mate, Richard, to obscure her singular focus and desire. But as the group visits more cities, monuments, and museums (nearly every chapter denotes a new city and day), she becomes emboldened (inching toward frantic) as she reads into every touch and gloats over the symbolism in gestures as simple as sipping from a coffee cup. Is this erotic spell mutual, or is Helen losing herself to fantasy?
Before Helen departed for Italy, Marcel had recommended she take the novel Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith (author of queer, psychological novels such as The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Price of Salt) for company. Marcel’s reasoning is that the novel’s story takes place in the same towns; this can be read as a meta “wink” at D’Stair drawing inspiration from Highsmith’s interrogations of identity and existential crises amid picturesque backdrops. The novel Helen brings along involves a murder, and readers will find echoes of Ripley’s title character’s obsession with a beautiful young man and the escapist potential of his lifestyle in how Helen pines for Marieke and in the story’s mounting potential for violence. Helen notes again and again how little she cares for any of her tour mates, not even bothering to learn their names (aside from Richard’s). Her deepest conversations and moments of introspection that aren’t filtered through the lens of Marieke come from experiencing the art around her. The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, for example, offers a reprieve from her general cynicism, allowing her to ruminate and perhaps even believe in the power of art’s influence, if only briefly: “What does it matter whether it is truly real or some burgeoning capitalist’s abomination. Only the romance matters now, the symbol, the truth not in the material but in the mind of the observer.” And this elusive romance, for better or worse, eventually drives Helen toward her conclusion.
(*) PUBLISHERS WEEKLY/BOOKLIFE (2/27/2024)
An academic’s obsession plunges her Italian tour into charged erotic suspense.
Blending literary suspense, travelogue, and a spirit of uneasy eroticism, D'Stair (author of One Year of Desire) plumbs the heart and needs of a bored academic, Helen Bonaparte, on a restless tour of Italy she's undertaken to get out of her rut at home. But Helen can't stand the giggling girls and impassioned teachers on the tour and is fully prepared to mope her way through until she meets the tour guide, Marieke. Helen immediately forms an obsessive, strange, and poetic attachment to the beautiful young woman, an attachment whose unsettling qualities are echoed in the novel’s references to suspense master Patricia Highsmith, as Helen imagines an Italy “infused with Highsmith's pulse” and the rich details of the author’s world: “a hand resting on a hotel door, a pulled trigger,” and more.
The evocatively named Helen is still mostly sullen on the trip, except with a vivacious man named Richard, who becomes her travel buddy. Wrapped up in her own narrative, Helen continues to fixate on the details of Marieke's beauty, even as she's reminded of her partner, Marcel, and children at home. As she plunges deeper into fantasy, the narrative alternates between first- and third-person, suggesting a protagonist getting swept away. Soon, after a charged scene before Michelango's David, Helen surreptitiously takes a bite of food with Marieke's fork, just to have a "chance to feel her tongue." Things get increasingly weird as Helen takes advantage of being in Marieke's room to put her toothbrush in her mouth as well as leave her scent—a scene that jolts.
Helen Bonaparte brings poetic vigor to Helen’s imaginings and occasional pushing of boundaries, deftly mingling desire, tension, and the feeling that things could go very wrong. This is a full-bodied, sumptuously written, always perceptive study of yearning for something more, as Helen works through a moment of existential crisis, eager for connection. D'Stair’s prose startles, dazzles, informs, and pleases.
March 18, 2024
Thanks to NetGalley and Late Marriage Press for the digital galley of this book.
In search of a week of renewal and away from it all, Helen Bonaparte signs up for a week-long tour of Italy. The middle-aged academic has left her husband and children behind for the ancient history of places like Venice, Rome, Florence, and Assisi. She’s immediately distracted by and becomes obsessed with the tour guide, Marieke. As the short trip progresses, Marieke becomes the center of Helen’s fantasies, and she’ll have to come to grips with this obsession and re-examine herself and her life.
I was initially attracted to this one by the plot. I’m always down for a middle-aged woman trying to find herself, and if she finds her desires steering toward another ladytype, well, bonus. For me, the highlight of this one is the language. It’s beautifully written and asks some very deep questions of the protagonist, her obsession, and the reader. However, the plot was a bit lacking for me. It dragged on a tad long, and I ended up skimming parts of the second half. Though I loved the language and the thoughts and ideas of Helen, I wasn’t overly invested in the characters themselves.
If you’re looking for a beautifully written journey with a meandering plot, though, definitely give this one a go. I highlighted many lines and passages to revisit later.
In search of a week of renewal and away from it all, Helen Bonaparte signs up for a week-long tour of Italy. The middle-aged academic has left her husband and children behind for the ancient history of places like Venice, Rome, Florence, and Assisi. She’s immediately distracted by and becomes obsessed with the tour guide, Marieke. As the short trip progresses, Marieke becomes the center of Helen’s fantasies, and she’ll have to come to grips with this obsession and re-examine herself and her life.
I was initially attracted to this one by the plot. I’m always down for a middle-aged woman trying to find herself, and if she finds her desires steering toward another ladytype, well, bonus. For me, the highlight of this one is the language. It’s beautifully written and asks some very deep questions of the protagonist, her obsession, and the reader. However, the plot was a bit lacking for me. It dragged on a tad long, and I ended up skimming parts of the second half. Though I loved the language and the thoughts and ideas of Helen, I wasn’t overly invested in the characters themselves.
If you’re looking for a beautifully written journey with a meandering plot, though, definitely give this one a go. I highlighted many lines and passages to revisit later.
July 11, 2024
a good story, a little over-written. d'stair's prose styling is dense, a little inebriated, like the inner monologue of someone with a bad fever. it suits the story well enough, but wasn't totally enjoyable for me -- I had a hard time getting into it, and I often wasn't sure I was understanding even basic aspects of the plot and characters correctly. that's not a quality I categorically dislike -- it reminded me, a little, of Miranda July's The First Bad Man -- but in this case, I think I would have enjoyed things much more had it made me feel a little less concussed.
anyway thnx netgalley i luv u netgalley etc
anyway thnx netgalley i luv u netgalley etc
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March 27, 2026this book was… interesting. and i think i know why. looking at the rest of d’stair’s works (which are poetry), it makes sense. this novel is if poetry was turned into prose. and i don’t exactly know if i like it?? but maybe that’s just me.
anyways.. to sum it up, this is a story about obsession. obsession in a highsmith-eqsue-but-make-it-even-more- pretentious kind of way. it’s written in first-person but sometimes helen refers to herself in the third… which, is kinda pretentious.
however, there are some things that i liked. the allusions!! i already mentioned highsmith, but the dante and biblical references kept me going. and the fact that it’s set in italy (which has a very special place in my heart). and also this book is very quote-able, if that makes sense. an honorable mention includes: “Shall my gestures be the one in a Highsmith novel, or simply a set piece for atmosphere along Venetian bridges and swollen storefronts?”
so, would i necessarily pick this book up on my own? no. but would i recommend it to people who seem to enjoy poetry (and more “pretentious” writing) more than i do? i might.
1.5/5 stars.
also! shout out to Late Marriage Press for sending me a physical copy— y’all rock
anyways.. to sum it up, this is a story about obsession. obsession in a highsmith-eqsue-but-make-it-even-more- pretentious kind of way. it’s written in first-person but sometimes helen refers to herself in the third… which, is kinda pretentious.
however, there are some things that i liked. the allusions!! i already mentioned highsmith, but the dante and biblical references kept me going. and the fact that it’s set in italy (which has a very special place in my heart). and also this book is very quote-able, if that makes sense. an honorable mention includes: “Shall my gestures be the one in a Highsmith novel, or simply a set piece for atmosphere along Venetian bridges and swollen storefronts?”
so, would i necessarily pick this book up on my own? no. but would i recommend it to people who seem to enjoy poetry (and more “pretentious” writing) more than i do? i might.
1.5/5 stars.
also! shout out to Late Marriage Press for sending me a physical copy— y’all rock
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews